People to Follow
A list of people I follow: friends, authors, builders, podcast hosts, and philosophy enthusiasts.
Daniel Vassallo: Daniel’s approach to business is built around tinkering, pursuing projects he’s intrinsically motivated by, and building a portfolio of small bets. Given the uncertainty of the business world, you might never know beforehand which project will end up becoming a big success. Read his essay on intrinsic motivation.
Hassan Osman: In his free time, Hassan builds on the side. This approach made it possible for him to publish over 20 short and practical books for professionals and managers, and develop 12 courses on Udemy with over 300k students. His latest book is It’s All About Survival: How One Word Explains the Instincts That Drive You and the World, which explores how survival is a key concept at the core of everything we do today, from ending a friendship over political disagreements to staying in a job one no longer feels is rewarding anymore.
Jamal El Kuweiss: As of recently, Jamal has been grappling with ideas at the intersection of physics, philosophy, and management consulting. When he’s not down the rabbit hole of astronomy and philosophy, he is probably baking or cooking a feast, or fighting with cats over what feline philosophy really is.
Jordan O’Connor: A solopreneur who’s been building and growing a SaaS business (Resellbot) mainly focused on helping others resell online on platforms such as Poshmark and eBay. He also occasionally shares his reflections on his blog.
Joy Batra: A lawyer turned author and podcast host. Author of The Freelance Mindset, a book exploring the hidden risks of relying only on a 9-5 job, the questions we ought to ask before venturing into freelancing, how to prepare for a freelancing career, and how to navigate both worlds with ease.
Laksh Raghavan: Founder of Cyb3rsyn, a newsletter and community that explores multidisciplinary insights for executives, leaders, and entrepreneurs. Also author of Mistakes of Mainstream Management, a critique of mainstream management practices that argues for a more systems-based thinking approach to organizational challenges, and also encourages leaders and entrepreneurs to examine their assumptions and ask better questions.
Megan Preston Meyer: Ex-corporate turned author, Megan spent a decade working in data-analytics and optimization. Now she spends her time sharing the stories that data doesn’t tell. She’s the author of several books, including the novel Firebrand, a lighthearted, funny, and thought-provoking read that follows a fresh MBA graduate navigating imposter syndrome, office politics, and ethical dilemmas, in vivid contrast to the constrained world of MBA case studies.
Nick Gray: In addition to founding and selling Museum Hack, and currently building Patron View, Nick is author of The 2-Hr Cocktail Party, a book that aims to make it easier for anyone to meet new people and grow their network, especially when you find yourself new in town. It offers a step-by-step guide to hosting a successful, structured party with a 2-hr limit, including everything from how to invite people to a list of icebreaker questions to keep everyone engaged. I tried it myself, here’s how it went.
Peter Askew: An online entrepreneur and history buff whose business development philosophy is based on finding inspiration in expired domains. That’s how he built an ecommerce business selling Vidalia onions. Other businesses he currently runs or is building include Ranchwork and ZooJobs. In his free time, he wonders whether he should read Hegel.
Prabhchintan Randhawa: Prab is interested in exploring ideas at the intersection of science and philosophy, especially topics related to the fundamental nature of reality, influenced by Stephen Wolfram’s computational universe among other things. He builds technology and trades commodities: industrial analytics, iOS apps, AI productivity tools, and running Ethereum validators. Read his blog.
Telmo Pires: A developer and Machine Learning engineer. He’s worked in big tech (Apple, Google Research) and was Founding Staff Engineer and Head of ML at an AI startup (Equall), and is currently building ML infrastructure and offering tech consulting. When he’s not doing machine learning stuff, he’s reading philosophy.
This is a /friends page, inspired by slashfriends.org and Nick Gray.